Recent reviews by Danny252

As others have mentioned, the game itself provides no insight at all on how to play it. A tutorial button that is disabled - and, from the message given, appears to have been disabled since a July 2023 update; no indication that there is an in-game guide; no link to any official or unofficial external resources, other than some social media links. Starting a new game places a player in an empty world, with no guidance or objectives. From the comments in a recent set of patch notes at the time of writing, it is clear that the devs are aware that this is how the game opens.

The only option provided for guidance is to roll back to an older version under betas. Doing so reveals that even something like the game's inventory system is sufficiently novel and complex that a tutorial is needed to at least list all of the features: nested inventory slots, separate left and right hand slots, certain tools that need to be activated before use, and so on. That isn't to say those systems are bad - novel approaches to game design are worth trying, and they do seem to match the overall theme of the game - but they do need explanation.

Even for a newly released EA game, this would be a fairly poor state to be in. For a game initially released in 2017 with a large set of DLC, it's unacceptable that the tutorial has apparently been disabled for a year, despite monthly updates. The development team presumably hope to dissuade feedback on this with their "hardcore" and "not a casual game" labelling.

If this review could recommend "neutral" or "potentially wait and see", I'd have chosen that option.

The simulation itself has clearly been created with love. The single route currently available (indicated as two separate routes in single player, but combined as one in MP) is detailed and lengthy (hundreds of route miles of track). Similarly, while only five types of locomotive/MU are available, each is a fully detailed recreation - ranging from modern EMUs with "press forwards to go" controls, to the EU07's 1960s-style control scheme with its incredibly atmospheric mechanical clunking and clattering of relays behind the cab as you notch up. The signalling and dispatcher controls also show a very rarely seen level of attention to detail - down to having to break the seals on mechanical releases if you mess things up.

The multiplayer is relatively well designed, and reasonably stable - other than logging in and not moving/dispatching trains, it seems resilient to most forms of intentional harm. Passing a signal at danger will reset your train (rather than messing up gameplay for others); the server will prevent the most harmful misroutings by player dispatchers; and the AI is (generally) capable of filling any role not covered by a player. This is in contrast to some competing games, where client-server desyncs were very common and harmful, and where the simulation would feel very empty if players weren't around.

Where the game currently lacks somewhat is in content. In singleplayer, only a small handful of scenarios are available, with no free-roam, "choose a train from the timetable", or ability to use the editor. Multiplayer is, unusually, more fully-fledged, with players able to pick any train on the timetable. For drivers, the number of servers is generally sufficient, although some language communities have quickly filled up the couple of servers available to them, and players have no ability to host their own sessions.

The well-simulated dispatcher mode is, sadly, very limited. It is available in multiplayer only, with only a small number of locations available to players (13 per server, with 27 servers offering dispatcher mode, reduced to between 1 and 7 servers if you wish to play in your own language). The majority of dispatcher positions are also very simple, with no stations, junction, or activity other than a handful of passing trains per hour, leading to even worse competition for the few interesting spots. This is then worsened by an in-built time-gating system, preventing new players from accessing most non-trivial locations until they have *hours* of playtime in dispatcher mode. This has led to repeated issues with new players simply logging in to a boring location and leaving their computer, stopping play for others - even if kicked after 30 minutes, it counts towards their hours.

The initial release has a number of bugs on its opening weekend - ranging from tooltips going missing and controls not being quite right, to the server AI occasionally managing to get itself into a complete mess needing a restart. Hopefully these will be patched quickly - devs have at least been responsive in acknowledging reports on the forum, and a couple of game-breaking bugs in singleplayer scenarios were attended to quickly. Game performance is also somewhat of an issue, particularly frame drops when new models are loaded in, though perseverance with settings can at least give consistent (if not amazing) performance.